Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

Uhtred smiled in response. ”Well, what do you think?”

He raised a brow in question, an air of mystery about him. He could have answered, of course, but he left the answer up to Minh Quan and the others’ imaginations.

”His class has to be Legendary Grade at least,” Zara suddenly spoke from the side, drawing everyone’s attention. ”I mean, he’s the number one ranker, even above me, so...”

Uhtred’s brow shot up, and he tilted his head slightly in question.

”And what exactly do you mean by that, Zara?”

Zara shrugged. ”My class... it’s Legendary Grade. So the fact that you’re above me means you have to be at least Legendary Grade, or even higher...”

Her words dropped like a heavy anvil, leaving another round of dead silence in the room. Even Uhtred was left momentarily dumbstruck.

”Why are your mouths hanging wide open?” Zara scoffed softly. ”Even you, Uhtred. What? Did you think a simple Unique Grade would be able to keep pace with you so closely? Check the rankings again. See where King Alexei currently is. He’s a Unique Grade talent, isn’t he?”

Uhtred, still thoroughly shocked at what Zara had just so casually revealed, opened his ranking panel like she had said and scanned through the global standings for the first time in a long while:

[World Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Red

Level: 47

Territory Owned: 1 (Capitol of The Elite)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Zara

Level: 45

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: King Alexei

Level: 38

Territory Owned: 1 (Tsar’s Dominion)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 4

Name: Perfection

Level: 37

Territory Owned: 1 (Land of The Flawless)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 5

Name: Black Sun

Level: 35

Territory Owned: 2 (The Black Isles)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 6

Name: Diya

Level: 35

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 7

Name: Antoine Blanc

Level: 32

Territory Owned: 1 (United New Eden) → (Nil)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 8

Name: White Raven

Level: 31

Territory Owned: 1 (Nordrheim)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 9

Name: Hassan Al-Malik

Level: 31

Territory Owned: 1 (Ardh Al-Malik)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 10

Name: Isolde Castiglione

Level: 30

Territory Owned: (Fortezza Castiglione)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 11

Name: Quiet Daoist

Level: 30

Territory Owned: 1 (Mount Kunlun)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 12

Name: Stormcaller

Level: 29

Territory Owned: 1 (Lightning Kingdom)

Dungeons Owned: 3

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 13

Name: Jolene Okafor

Level: 29

Territory Owned: 8 (Marina Archipelago)

Dungeons Owned: 11

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 14

Name: Koffi Mensah

Level: 28

Territory Owned: 1 (Sankofa Peaks)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 15

Name: Daofarer

Level: 28

Territory Owned: 1 (Southern Cloud Air Temple)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 16

Name: Glorious Eagle Vance

Level: 27

Territory Owned: 7 (United New Eden & Outposts)

Dungeons Owned: 4

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 17

Name: Iron Tyrant

Level: 27

Territory Owned: 1 (The Iron Sovereignty)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 18

Name: Aiko Mizuku

Level: 27

Territory Owned: 1 (Shikoku Sovereignty)

Dungeons Owned: 2

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 19

Name: Lord of Flames

Level: 27

Territory Owned: 2 (Hellfire Country)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 20

Name: Buttercup

Level: 26

Territory Owned: 1 (Wondrous Wonderland)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

***

[Global Wealth Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Jolene Okafor

Level: 29

Total Wealth Value: 2,563,160 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Red

Level: 47

Total Wealth Value: 2,517,408 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: Zara

Level: 45

Total Wealth Value: 2,015,905 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 4

Name: Diya

Level: 35

Total Wealth Value: 1,393,950 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 5

Name: Perfection

Level: 37

Total Wealth Value: 1,104,036 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 6

Name: King Alexei

Level: 38

Total Wealth Value: 1,021,450 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 7

Name: Black Sun

Level: 35

Total Wealth Value: 922,512 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 8

Name: White Raven

Level: 31

Total Wealth Value: 885,000 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 9

Name: Golden Finger Chen

Level: 25

Total Wealth Value: 867,400 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 10

Name: Hassan Al-Malik

Level: 31

Total Wealth Value: 794,009 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 11

Name: Isolde Castiglione

Level: 30

Total Wealth Value: 787,981 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 12

Name: Antoine Blanc

Level: 32

Total Wealth Value: 728,500 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 13

Name: Iron Tyrant

Level: 27

Total Wealth Value: 511,705 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 14

Name: Glorious Eagle Vance

Level: 27

Total Wealth Value: 494,950 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 15

Name: Quiet Daoist

Level: 30

Total Wealth Value: 452,066 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 16

Name: Shogun

Level: 25

Total Wealth Value: 389,000 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 17

Name: Stormcaller

Level: 29

Total Wealth Value: 360,004 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 18

Name: Aiko Mizuku

Level: 27

Total Wealth Value: 328,442 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 19

Name: Daofarer

Level: 28

Total Wealth Value: 327,453 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 20

Name: Warhound Thorne

Level: 25

Total Wealth Value: 221,500 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

***

Uhtred had only wanted to check King Alexei’s current rank, but in the end, he found himself browsing through the entire overall shifts across the ranking ladder anyway.

So many things had changed from the last time he checked the rankings until now.

First, regarding King Alexei, his Unique Grade talent was just as Zara had pointed out. It placed him solidly above others like Diya, Black Sun Mateo, and Antoine Blanc — ascenders known to possess Epic and Rare Grade talents — but it still wasn’t enough to put him anywhere near Uhtred in terms of Level.

In fact, King Alexei’s Unique Grade talent was only enough to keep him one Level ahead of Perfection. And if Uhtred remembered correctly, the last time he had checked the rankings, Perfection had even temporarily surpassed King Alexei briefly.

Now, whether that was because King Alexei didn’t grind as much as Perfection, or because Perfection had perhaps stumbled upon some sort of fortuitous encounter that allowed him to go toe-to-toe with King Alexei, one couldn’t be entirely sure.

The only thing that remained undeniably clear was that King Alexei was nowhere close to Uhtred, and that gap would only continue to widen as time went on.

The only person anywhere near him was Zara. And now that she had laid bare the reason why, it made much more sense.

So a Legendary Grade Class is enough to nearly keep pace with me?

Uhtred frowned at first, but then his mind flashed back to a critical revelation he had deduced during the Trial of Ages.

He remembered how the different talent grades separated into clear divides in how long it took an ascender to cross the Mortal-Nascent Realm barrier.

Back then — and even over the course of this past year — he had observed the exact same law playing out: ascenders of each talent grade took drastically different lengths of time to cross that boundary.

A Unique Grade, like King Alexei, could breach the barrier with relative ease. The same applied to an Epic Grade like Diya or Perfection. Rare Grades found the threshold significantly harder to cross, and the difficulty scaled exponentially harsher the lower the talent grade went down the line...